The Two Paths
By R.P. Burnham
()
About this ebook
The Two Paths begins at a lakeside cottage where a group of graduating seniors, all of them members of the football team that had won the state championship that year, are having a celebratory end-of-school party. One of them is Robbie Elder, the hero of that game, and it is he who later in the night violates in an ambiguous rape Cilla Whitten, a plain and socially awkward junior lured there by the promise of excitement and popularity. The rest of the novel follows these two into young adulthood while exploring the social conditioning and societal expectations of males and females: Cilla, as an unwed mother, roused to a life of helping others, and Robbie, both burdened with and helped by his fame as a football hero and desperate to escape his working class origins, ambitiously and single-mindedly pursuing wealth and status.
***
For you who have read R. P. Burnham’s The Many Change and Pass, or any other of his engaging works of fiction, the publication of his new novel, The Two Paths, is indeed good news. Burnham has an uncanny ability to bring to life the characters he creates. The range of these characters is Dickens-like. This vividly realized but widely differing catalogue of persona compels the reader both to sympathize and make judgments. Played out in upper New England near the sea, the setting of the novel is as convincing as are the characters. The novel opens with a bang, a “gangbang,” out of which the conflict inevitably grows: raw sex vs. true love. The first path causes us to echo, “the pity of it all.” The second makes us shout to ourselves, “yes, yes, yes!” Yet the path that is studded with dark depths of doubt, despair, and self-defeat has a seemingly stronger hold on humanity than does the path of illumination, self-understanding, and reconciliation. Which path it will be is convincingly rendered in Burnham’s lucid and fluent prose.
–John Wheatcroft
R.P. Burnham
R.P. Burnham edits The Long Story literary magazine and is a writer. He has published fiction and essays in many literary magazines. He has published six novels with The Wessex Collective—On a Darkling Plain, Envious Shadows, The Many Change and Pass, A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, The Two Paths and Jonathan Willing's Travels to Pangea. The Guy in 3-C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables was published as a chapbook in 2000.Most of his fiction is set in Maine, where he was born and raised and has deep root; thematically his fiction explores the boundaries of the self and addresses the question of what our duties and responsibilities are to others. The Least Shadow of Public Thought, a book of his essays that introduce each issue of The Long Story, was published in 1996 by Juniper Press as part of its Voyages Series. He was educated at the University of Southern Maine (undergraduate) and The University of Wisconsin–Madison (graduate). He is married to Kathleen A. FitzPatrick, an associate professor of Health Science at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA.
Read more from R.P. Burnham
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Guy in 3C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnvious Shadows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Many Change and Pass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJonathan Willing's Travels to Pangea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn a Darkling Plain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Two Paths
Related ebooks
Holidays in Asshat Collection: Magic and Mayhem Universe: Holidays in Assjacket Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKill the Ones You Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Seer and The Skull Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeadly Rhymes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMan of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmooth Talking Texan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBillionaire Unloved: Billionaire Romance Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHis Secret Son Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBreaking Brandon (Fate #2) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Naked Attraction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Knockback: The Wrong Side of the Tracks, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSleeping with the Opposition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beresford Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Billionaire: Billionaire Romance Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor Another Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBefore Love Had a Name: Book 1: Before Love, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings'Twas the Night Before Christmas Eve (Nights Before #6) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEchoes of Red: A Bernard and Clydesdale Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Billionaire: A Billionaire Romance Boxed Set Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavy SEAL Protector Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Norwegian Woody Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoliday Magic: Magic and Mayhem Universe: Holidays in Assjacket, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuthless (Book 3): Violent Spawn MC, #3 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Billionaire: A Billionaire Romance Series: Billionaire Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrett King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFreeboard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTelling: True-to-Life Series from Hamilton High, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaving Yesler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDangerous Reunion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Deeper Grave Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Candy House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Two Paths
0 ratings0 reviews